28, sooner or later

Then they should fight Sac balls.

 

Nope I will go with a better market like Mpls/StP. Ha.

 

They would -- tooth and nail.

From what I understand, the Quakes strongly back SRFC for MLS because having Sacramento in MLS would effectively saturate the Northern California market -- meaning the Quakes would never face competition from another Bay Area MLS team.

 

Republic would make an ideal rival for them and MLS would no doubt make a derby out of it.

 

I'm kind of shocked there isn't more rumblings about MLS in the Carolina region. Are the ownership groups of the Carolina Railhawks or Charlote Independence wealthy enough to make the jump? To me this would be an area the league would be making a priority in the same way that they desperately want an ownership group and stadium in St Louis.

 

As an A's and 49ers fan, I don't think the Bay Area works all that well for two teams. It seems like the East Bay squads for the two-sport leagues seem to be perpetually relegated to the B team in the region. It might be the stadium that Al Davis destroyed in 1994 and turned it into the worst remaining baseball park in MLB and a mediocre Football stadium, but I also think the Bay Area's regions have never been as historically differentiated as say Baltimore and Washington DC.

Outside of LA and New York, you basically only have multiple teams in the same Metropolitan/CSA Region in:

Chicago (Baseball)
DC/Baltimore (Baseball and Football)
The Bay Area (Baseball and Football)

The Bay Area is the smallest of these CSAs and seems to be the one where the "2nd" team in the region struggles the most.

 

SF is a tricky on. On the surface it doesn't make any sense. You already have a team in the market. And while Santa Clara isn't the city it's still the same media market.

But there is something intriguing about it. People who live in "The City" are really proud of "The City" (to point of being downright annoying about it). If you could put a team actually in the city of San Francisco you could tap in this pride of "The City". This would be the team of urbanites and young techie millennials while the Quakes would be the more suburban team . So I think it could work.

The two big issues are with sponsorship, and of course the cost of land and construction in SF. Which is why I don't see it happening. If MLS really wants to expand in California I think 500 miles south would be a better option. Not that I am biased or anything

 

Until pro/rel, of course. ...

 

The only way I see pro/rel ever occurring is if MLS over expands to more than 32 clubs and the ones in the biggest markets and with owners with the deepest pockets decide to break away in the same way the EPL formed a few decades ago. As long as they don't over extend themselves and chase after expansion fees by awarding places like Duluth and Moose Jaw franchises I think MLS will be safe.

 

Owners can't break away from MLS, MLS owns all clubs, owners just run clubs and own a piece of MLS.

It would be a sweet setup if you could collect expansion fees from small markets and then just tell them "thanks all for your money but you are just too small, cya later alligators."

 

Guys! Guys!

This one didn't get the pro-rel joke.

 

Well, with umpteen hundred posters on this site it's hard to keep up with who is realistic and knows promotion & relegation will never happen and who is still dreaming the dream.

 

I always wanted to ask, hypothetically, what would be so great or the lure about promotion & relegation in the USA? I mean who would be benefiting by it? In most leagues , avoiding relegation can cost or give a club millions in sponsors and TV money but other lesser clubs also lose a ton of money by investing in players and then losing it all in one -two years time by going up and down. Maurizio Zamparini owner of Palermo stated that he lost $33,346,500 by getting relegated to the Serie B. Therefore, what would say an MLS , NASL and USL have to gain or lose if it were to happen? The way I see it, other than making lower level teams end of season matches more exciting, I don't see much benefit in the pro/rel thing. At least in North America , all I envision is the folding of clubs.

 

Well said. I can only imagine it working between Division 2 and Division 3 teams where there just isn't as much at stake in terms of T.V. money and sponsors. That is, there really isn't all that much of a dropoff between, say, the Indy Eleven, the New York Cosmos or the Carolina Railhawks in the NASL and, for example, the Tampa Bay Rowdies or the Ricmond Kickers or the Charleston Battery one level lower.

One crucial difference between Euro leagues and our league is that MLS has parity rules. Accordingly, pro/rel probably helps with fan support for teams that are fighting relegation and for Division 2 teams that are fighting for promotion. The English Championship League has an interesting twist in which the top two finishers automatically qualify for the Premiership and the third through sixth place teams place a post-season tournament for promotion.

Another crucial difference is that MLS is a continent-wide league while most Euro leagues can travel to opposing teams stadiums by bus. One thing you can say about MLS is that it costs more money to transport teams around the United States and Canada - and that's a significant difference. If the top Euro leagues were to to breakaway and form a super continent-wide Euro league, you can bet dollars to donuts that there would be no pro/rel.

A third crucial difference is that MLS started from scratch just twenty years ago. Most MLS teams have been financing their own stadiums out-of-pocket. Most Euro teams, on the other hand, are playing in stadiums that are either paid-off or have been publicly financed.

 

Yeah its the same in Italy where the Serie B has a promotion playoffs. The top two teams go directly to the Serie A and teams from 5th to 8th square off in a tournament which determines the third team that will be promoted. Berlusconi of Milan wanted to do a Euro Super league back in the early 90's but I don't think UEFA or the individual federations allowed it. I think the was around the time they renamed European Cup to the UEFA Champions League. Europe has a completely different culture when it comes to sports. Bottom teams in fact can and have imploded by getting relegated whereas the opposite occurs in America. You have the worst teams in a league actually getting rewarded in terms of draft picks and with the crazy MLS rules allocation money or wanting parity or whatever. That will never happen to a a European team. Also, most top teams rarely get relegated. You had the Rangers in Scotland and Fiorentina in Italy because of financial difficulty but then those clubs usually they come back up. Rarely do the top clubs go down.

 

USL basically capitalizes on this. It's the weigh station for wannabe MLS clubs but there are only so many seats left on the bus.

 

You hit the nail on the head. USL has raised their expansion fees to 3 mil. Many teams unhappy and are requesting to see their books. Teams are bleeding money and some are on the verge of collapse. A little birding told me the soon to be #25 MLS expansion team is completely out of money and must sell now or not make it through the season.

 

I know they split off a few years ago but things always change rapidly in American soccer. Do you know if there is there any chance both the NASL & USL might merge eventually?

 

And NASL teams aren't as well? Sacramento has Billionaires in their ownership group, they're fine. Lower Division (or Minor League, if you will) sports teams are always teetering on the brink in the U.S.

 

That makes literally no sense in the context of SRFC.

Kevin Nagle already owns the team, and he's not going to run out of many anytime soon.

 

Blueballs is referring to Miami

 

But there isn't a Miami team in USL though................

 

San Antonio, perhaps???

 

Saint Louis FC maybe. Ownership is not as rich as Sacramento and San Antonio to my knowledge and they don't draw as well either.

 

Look at blueballs's post history. Lots of bold "rumors", none of which have actually happened. Neither OC Blues nor Wilmington are taking a hiatus in 2016. The NASL did not have a done deal on an expansion team in San Francisco as of last fall, nor are there two additional California expansion teams in advanced stages with deep-pocketed owners.